


keep you like an oath

by sarahyyy



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Police, Love Confessions, M/M, Minor Character Death, Misunderstandings, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 18:04:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3497765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahyyy/pseuds/sarahyyy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras swallows. “If Grantaire has him,” he says slowly, trying to piece his thoughts together. “If Grantaire has Gavroche, he’s not going to hurt him.”</p><p>“<i>Babet is in pieces</i>,” Montparnasse snarls. “We don’t know what Grantaire is capable of. We don’t <i>know</i> Grantaire anymore.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	keep you like an oath

**Author's Note:**

> This [Line Walker](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_Walker) AU that I said I was never going to write but still ended up writing is why I can't be allowed to watch TVB dramas.

“Grantaire, what are you doing?” 

Grantaire lifts his head up slowly. “Mourning,” he spits out bitterly, raising his bottle of wine in a mock salute. When he closes his eyes, a few stray tears escape. 

Enjolras clenches his fists. “This isn’t-” He takes a breath, forces himself to start over. “She wouldn’t have wanted you to be like this.”

“She wouldn’t have wanted to die like that either,” Grantaire says.

“Grantaire, I need you to pull yourself together,” Enjolras tells him. 

Grantaire laughs, and Enjolras tries very hard not to flinch because it sounds nothing like the sort of laughter that Enjolras has come to expect from Grantaire, sounds hollow instead. 

Grantaire opens his eyes slowly, fixes his gaze on Enjolras. “I can’t,” he tells Enjolras, voice hoarse. “I _can’t_. It hurts too much to try. She was all I had, Enjolras. She was all I had for the longest time. I can’t just pull myself together like it never happened. She’s _family_.” He takes a swig from his bottle, shaking a little. “I’m mourning,” he repeats, a reminder to Enjolras to tread lightly.

“We don’t have that sort of luxury, R,” Enjolras says as gently as he knows how, crouching down in front of Grantaire. “We are cops, we have an ongoing investigation, and it’s our duty to-”

“I don’t care,” Grantaire snarls. “I don’t fucking care about the case, I don’t care about my duties or my fucking responsibilities, and if that makes me a bad cop, guess what, I don’t fucking care about that either. I don’t fucking want to care about that. All I want is-” He trails off, grip tightening on the bottle of wine in his hands. “I want to go back in time and do things all over again,” he tells Enjolras, not caring about the tears streaking down his face. “I want to have said no when Valjean told me to go undercover with you. I want to have said no when you told me that you wanted to drag Floréal into this. I want so many things, Enjolras, but most of all I want to have never loved you, because then maybe it would’ve been so much easier to say no to you, because then maybe it wouldn’t have been like this.” He takes a shaky breath. “You want me to pull myself together, to stop drinking? Every time I try, I remember her lying in that pool of blood, and I think to myself that she must’ve been in so much pain, must’ve suffered so much, must’ve been so scared, and she would’ve never been in that position if I’d known how to say no to you.” 

Enjolras draws in a sharp breath. “R-”

“You promised me she would be fine,” Grantaire sobs out. “In and out, you said. We’ll have eyes on her the entire time, no -one will know she was involved, you said. You said you would protect her, you _promised_ me. You’ve never broken any promises to me before, why did you this time, why did it have to be this time?” 

“I tried everything I could,” Enjolras says, and even though he knows that it’s the truth, he can’t get rid of the stab of guilt inside of him. “I’m so sorry it happened, I’m so sorry that she- I’m so sorry, R, but we can’t-”

“Can’t what?” Grantaire asks, and then laughs, a little manic. “Can’t risk losing our lead in the investigation? Can’t stop the operation? Is the fucking investigation all you care about?” He shrugs Enjolras’ hands off his shoulders roughly. “She was all I had. _She was your friend too_.” 

She was. 

And the worst thing was, she didn’t have to do it, there would be other ways, other opportunities, but they’d been so close to the end and Enjolras had been impatient, and he’d made a decision — a wrong decision. 

“Grantaire-”

“If you’ve ever thought of her as your friend, if you care about me at all, you’ll let me avenge her,” Grantaire says, eyes hard. “I want to take Babet out myself.”

“I can’t let you do that,” Enjolras says, pleading. “You know I can’t, R.” 

Grantaire nods and turns away from Enjolras, as if he’d expected Enjolras to say that. “Leave,” he says. “I don’t want to see you right now. I don’t want to ever see you again. Leave.” 

Enjolras takes a step towards him. “Grantaire-”

“Don’t,” Grantaire says. “Please just leave. Please.”

Enjolras backs out of the door slowly. 

He’ll come back in an hour or so, when Grantaire will hopefully be a little more sober. 

He knows that Grantaire is upset and that he’s grieving, and that two weeks isn’t enough for him to put Floréal behind him, but they’re so close to the end and he can’t do this without Grantaire. They have to finish this, and then-

_I want to have never loved you._

And then they can talk. 

—

Enjolras comes back to the apartment two hours later to find it dark and empty. When he flick on the light switch, he forgets how to breathe. 

Because lying on Grantaire’s favourite seat, in place of Grantaire, is a single stripe of red fabric, the one Enjolras tore off and gave to Grantaire two months into their undercover operation, when Grantaire confessed that he was starting to find the lines between right and wrong a little difficult to tell. They had to hand in their badges to Captain Valjean before they were sent out here, for fear of someone accidentally figuring their identities out, and Enjolras had thought that it would be easier on Grantaire if he had something to remind him of who he was and what he was doing. 

Grantaire had that wrapped around his wrist, wore it everywhere he went. Eponine had taken to jokingly describing it as a love token from Enjolras, and Grantaire’d rolled his eyes and told her not to be stupid, but he hadn’t taken it off. 

“It reminds me of you, and you remind me of what’s right,” Grantaire’d told him after Eponine left, and Enjolras had wanted to kiss him, to hell with everything else that was telling him that it was a bad idea. 

He picks the stripe of cloth up from Grantaire’s couch, balls it up in his fist, and tries to will the fear inside of him away. 

It feels a lot like Grantaire is giving up his badge, like he’s going to do something monumentally rash, like Enjolras is going to lose him.

—

“I haven’t been able to find Grantaire,” Montparnasse tells him when he calls to ask. “I am with Babet, though. Lunch at a restaurant. What’s going on?”

“Stick with Babet,” Enjolras tells him, because Grantaire might be angry and out for revenge, but he isn’t stupid, he won’t try anything where witnesses are present. “Don’t let him out of your sight, not even for a second.” 

Montparnasse is silent for a moment. Then, he says, “You probably should’ve led with that. It’s only been about a minute since I looked away.”

Enjolras swears. If Babet is gone, Grantaire probably has him. “Find him, secure him. They can’t be far.”

“And Grantaire?” Montparnasse asks. “Has he gone rogue? Do you need me to take him out and call it my civic duty of the month?”

“ _No_ ,” Enjolras snaps. “Don’t you even think about touching him. Secure Babet, don’t hurt Grantaire. If you don’t think you can do it, locate them and then call me. I’ll take care of it myself.”

He hears Montparnasse snort. 

“You know that if Grantaire doesn’t kill Babet, Babet will probably kill him for trying something like this, right?” he asks. “Is this worth blowing your eighteen month undercover op, Detective?”

“That’s my problem to worry about, not yours,” Enjolras says tightly. He considers it, and then adds, a little hesitantly, “Take Gavroche with you if you have to.” 

He mostly tries to keep Gavroche out of the gang’s business, but he has a knack for finding people, and every second counts right now, when Grantaire is angry and rash. 

“I told him there was no way you didn’t at least return some of his feelings,” Montparnasse tells him, and Enjolras should hang up, should try to get himself back into the right headspace, but he can’t. “He didn’t believe me, probably still won’t if I tell him again, but that wouldn’t matter to Grantaire, because it’s never been about getting you to love him back for him. You don’t deserve him,” Montparnasse says quietly. 

“I know,” Enjolras says, and then ends the call.

He thinks about letting Grantaire do it. It wouldn’t be difficult to sell it to Captain Valjean as a necessary risk. Captain Valjean trusts them to know what they’re doing, and in the event that there is any kind of blowback, Grantaire should be able to get off with just a disciplinary warning if he works with Enjolras to collaborate their story.

He thinks about letting Grantaire pull the trigger, even if it’s only so that Grantaire would be able to assuage his guilt about Floréal’s death and get some peace out of it, only Enjolras _knows_ that it wouldn’t change anything, knows that revenge doesn’t fix anything, knows that Grantaire would hate himself for doing it after, when he’s not so clouded by his grief, and he can’t let Grantaire do that. 

He fires off a few texts, asking his contacts to alert him if they see Grantaire or Babet, and picks up his coat from where it’s lying on Grantaire’s couch. On an impulse, he picks up the stripe of red cloth too, and winds it around his wrist. 

He won’t let Grantaire make the mistake of succumbing to his anger or his guilt. 

—

The next few hours pass slowly, with Enjolras combing the streets and Grantaire’s usual haunts for him to no avail. 

He hasn’t heard back from Montparnasse, beyond the single update he’d gotten about Montparnasse taking Gavroche on his search. It doesn’t usually take Gavroche that long to find anyone, but given that Grantaire is rather close to both Eponine and Gavroche, he supposes that Grantaire would know a few tricks to hiding from Gavroche. 

Enjolras is on his way back to the apartment he shares with Grantaire, hoping to find him back home —drunk but otherwise unscathed—, when Montparnasse calls. 

“Jesus fuck, Enjolras,” Montparnasse says the moment Enjolras picks up, and Enjolras tenses up immediately, because Montparnasse is breathing hard and he sounds frantic, and he’s definitely not calling with good news. “We found Babet, _Christ_. He’s in the old mill off the road from the chapel. He’s not- Enjolras, _he’s in fucking pieces_.” 

Enjolras’ blood runs cold. His world is spinning off its axis. 

Grantaire wouldn’t. He _wouldn’t_. 

“And that’s not it,” Montparnasse continues. “That’s not what I’m- Look. We went into the mill, yeah? And we saw him. Parts of him. His head was definitely there. It’s definitely him. And then I grabbed a hold of Gav and we were going to hightail it out of there, but someone knocked me out, and when I woke up, Gav wasn’t there. I can’t find Gav. I wasn’t even going to bring him along, but I wanted an excuse to go see Ep, and now- I need to find Gav, so right now is where you use all your fucking cop connections to help me do it, or I swear to God.”

Enjolras swallows. “If Grantaire has him,” he says slowly, trying to piece his thoughts together. “If Grantaire has Gavroche, he’s not going to hurt him.”

“ _Babet is in pieces_ ,” Montparnasse snarls. “We don’t know what Grantaire is capable of. We don’t _know_ Grantaire anymore.”

—

Captain Valjean calls to tell him that he’s had CSI run the crime scene. 

Grantaire’s prints are all over the mill.

“Give me time to find him,” Enjolras says quietly. “This isn’t Grantaire. You’ve known him for longer than I have, you know he wouldn’t do this.” 

Valjean sighs. “He’s a good kid, a good cop,” Valjean tells him. “But grief does strange things to all of us.”

“Please,” Enjolras says. “Give me some time. Let me find him. Let me talk to him. If he- If he’s really responsible for this, I’ll talk him into turning himself in.”

There is a long pause over the phone. “You have forty-eight hours,” Valjean decides eventually. 

—

Enjolras finds Grantaire in the cemetery, hours later, and he’s shaking with anger when he gets there, anger at himself for not thinking to come here earlier, anger at Grantaire for doing this to himself, to Enjolras, to the oath of honour they took together when they were appointed as officers of the law. 

To keep peace. 

To prevent offences.

To uphold the law. 

He grips Grantaire by the shoulders and shakes him. “What did you do? _What did you do_?” 

Grantaire shakes him off roughly. “Nothing,” Grantaire bites out, angry. “Babet is fine. He’s in the mill. He’s not- I couldn’t.” He looks away from Enjolras, like it hurts for him to be looking at Enjolras, and turns to stare at Floréal’s grave instead. “I wanted to. I wanted to so much.”

Something inside Enjolras shifts, settles. 

He wants to believe Grantaire, he does, but he’s never been able to read Grantaire the way Grantaire is able to read him. 

“Grantaire, he’s dead,” Enjolras says. 

Grantaire’s gaze snaps back to Enjolras. “What?” he breathes out. 

“He’s dead,” Enjolras repeats. He doesn’t have to voice his next question. 

“You think I did it,” Grantaire whispers, taking a step away from Enjolras, and Enjolras wants to reach out, wants to tell Grantaire that he trusts him, that he would believe him no matter what, but that’s just the problem, isn’t it? 

He would believe anything Grantaire says just because Grantaire is the one saying it. Grantaire’s always been his blind spot. 

“Your fingerprints are all over the crime scene,” Enjolras forces himself to say, hearing the accusation seep into his words.

“You really think I did it,” Grantaire says, instead of acknowledging Enjolras’ words. 

“Can you blame me for thinking you did it?” Enjolras snaps. “You told me you were going to do it, and I don’t suppose you have an alibi for the time of the murder.” _Please prove me wrong_ , Enjolras doesn’t say. 

Grantaire’s fists his hands tightly. “I don’t suppose so, no,” he says, voice eerily even. 

“You’re not saying that you didn’t do it,” Enjolras says. “No. _No_. You don’t get to do this.” _You don’t get to do this to me_.

“You wouldn’t believe me anyway. I have nothing to back my words, and that’s all that matters to you, yeah? Evidence,” Grantaire says, and turns away from Enjolras. “Are you going to arrest me, Detective?”

Enjolras sucks in a sharp breath. “Why are you doing this, Grantaire?”

Grantaire ignores him. “If I walk away, will you shoot me?”

Enjolras won’t. 

He can’t.

“R.”

Grantaire nods, like he’s gotten his answer. 

He turns and starts walking away from Enjolras, and Enjolras can’t have that, he can’t let Grantaire leave now.

“Gavroche is missing,” Enjolras calls out and Grantaire goes very still. “Montparnasse was tracking you. He took Gavroche to the mill. We don’t know where he is.” He swallows. “If you have him, return him, please,” he says softly.

Grantaire keeps walking. 

—

Gavroche turns up in his apartment at three in the morning. 

“R said to come straight to you,” Gavroche says. He looks physically unharmed save for the nasty bruise on the side of his head. “He said you’d know what to do. He also said you were cops.” 

The accusation in his voice is evident, but Enjolras ignores that.

“Were you with Grantaire the whole time?” Enjolras asks, because he’s never believed in coincidences. Gavroche can’t just show up after he told Grantaire to let Gavroche go. “Did Grantaire take you?”

Gavroche stares at him. “I told Grantaire he was fucking stupid when he told me that you thought he did it. I thought he was just saying it for a laugh, yeah?” Gavroche shakes his head, disgusted. “How could you think that?” 

Something loosens in Enjolras’ chest. “I didn’t know what to think,” he confesses to Gavroche. 

Gavroche pulls out a phone from his pocket and hands it to Enjolras. “It’s Gueulemer’s phone. I liberated it off his body. Look into the inbox. There’s an address in a text. That’s where Grantaire found me.”

Enjolras does as Gavroche says. The address in the text is of a building a few streets away from the mill they found Babet in. “Gav-”

“Gueulemer’s body is still there,” Gavroche tells Enjolras. “He was the one who took me. Grantaire said you’d know what to do.”

“Where is Grantaire now?” Enjolras asks, urgent.

“He’s gone,” Gavroche says. He looks vaguely uncomfortable when he continues with, “He said that there was only so much law enforcement can do. He said he was going to take care of Patron-Minette for us once and for all.”

“He’s going after Claquesous,” Enjolras whispers. 

“Le Cabuc,” Gavroche says. “That’s the name he’s going by. Grantaire got it out of Gueulemer before he-” Gavroche squares his jaw. “Grantaire’s not going to get into trouble for that, right? Because Gueulemer was going to shoot me. Grantaire only did it to save my life.”

Enjolras shakes his head. “I’m not going to let anything happen to him,” he tells Gavroche, and means it. “But he can’t do this, he can’t go after Claquesous and take him out on his own. We’re officers of the law.”

Gavroche lifts his gaze, looks at Enjolras. “I think I might know where he’s going,” he says finally. “You’ll make sure he’s okay?” 

“Always,” Enjolras swears.

Gavroche nods. “He asked if I knew how to get into the basement of the Corinthe.”

—

He hears the cocking of a gun, and when he turns the corner of the veritable maze that is the basement of the Corinthe, Grantaire is standing over Claquesous’ limp body, gun pointed at him. He’s bleeding, crying, his hands are shaking a little, and Enjolras knows that Grantaire is going to do it, that Grantaire is going to shoot him, and end all this. 

“Grantaire,” Enjolras blurts out. “Grantaire, don’t.”

Grantaire doesn’t turn over to him. “You don’t have to be a part of this, Enjolras. Leave.”

“R, you did it, we have him here, we can get a team in, have him arrested, you did it, you _found_ Claquesous,” Enjolras tells him. He makes his way over to Grantaire. “Don’t do this, if you do this, there’s no coming back. This isn’t what we were sent here to do.”

“I’m not here to find and arrest Claquesous,” Grantaire spits out. “You should have heard him, E, God. He said he knew there were moles in the operation. He said he guessed as much that it was us. He said he had Babet kill Floréal to see what we would do, to see if it would lure us out. She was never going to find anything, she was never going to accomplish anything by going in, because _they knew_.”

“Then be angry at me!” Enjolras cries. “Be angry at _me_. _I_ sent her in, _I_ watched her die without doing anything. Be angry at _me_ , but don’t throw your badge away for revenge, R. Don’t.”

Grantaire laughs, harsh, bitter. “I don’t care about my badge anymore, Enjolras. All I want is-” He closes his eyes. “We don’t have enough on him. He’ll just get put away for a few years, and it’s not enough, Enjolras, _it’s not enough_. Floréal’s death has to mean something more, our sacrifices have to mean something more.”

Enjolras shakes his head. “We’ll get more evidence, we’ll get people to testify, we’ll put him away for good, Grantaire, I promise you we will.”

“Enjolras,” Grantaire says, and he finally turns over to look at Enjolras. “Please.” 

Enjolras steps forward, reaches out for Grantaire’s outstretched arm, and slowly covers his hand over the barrel of Grantaire’s gun. He can see the exact moment the light dies out in Grantaire’s eyes at the thought of Enjolras stopping him, of him not being able to say no when Enjolras asks. 

He thinks about all the things Grantaire’s had to do because Enjolras asked him to. He thinks about the many times Grantaire’d expressed concerns with parts of his plan, but had still gone along with it because he trusted Enjolras. He thinks about all the things Grantaire’d voluntarily done on this operation just so Enjolras wouldn’t have to compromise his morals.

He thinks about _I want to have never loved you_ , and how he doesn’t ever want Grantaire to feel that way.

“Let me do this for you,” he says finally, when Grantaire’s grip of his gun goes slack. He takes the gun into his hand. “You want him dead? Let me pull the trigger for you.”

“ _Enjolras_ ,” Grantaire breathes out, and it’s not a no. 

Enjolras aims, and—

Shoots.

—

“Cosette told me they assigned you a new partner,” Enjolras says, and has to hide a smile when Grantaire scowls. “Do you want to tell me about him?”

“His name is Marius. He’s quiet,” Grantaire says, and sighs. “And nice. He keeps volunteering to do my paperwork for me, I think he really likes it. And he smiles a lot. He’s nothing like you at all.”

Enjolras swallows. “That’s good, then.”

“No, it isn’t,” Grantaire tells him forcefully. “I want someone to nag at me and make me do my paperwork. I want someone who will scowl when I make inappropriate jokes. I want someone who will risk his career to shoot a man for me. I want you to come back.”

“Grantaire—” He looks away from Grantaire. They don’t know if he’ll be reinstated. He’d been as truthful as he could manage in his report without implicating Grantaire, but he’d hated the idea of lying for himself. 

“They’ll clear you of your charges soon, though. Then you’ll be back,” Grantaire says, and he’s rapping on the glass separating them, trying to get Enjolras to look up at him again. When Enjolras does, Grantaire continues, “And if they don’t reinstate you-”

Enjolras flinches. 

“If they don’t,” Grantaire continues, firm, “then they’re all being fucking stupid, fuck them. But they’re going to reinstate you once you’re cleared of your charges, I just know they are.”

Enjolras smiles at that, despite himself. “R, if they don’t clear me of my charges-” He’s looking at a culpable homicide not amounting to murder charge. His legal team is working on an exercise of duty defence, and they feel good about it, but Enjolras knows that it could go either way. He could end up being imprisoned for five to ten years, and he knows it’s selfish of him to ask, but he thinks he owes it to the both of them to. 

“They are going to,” Grantaire insists.

“But if they don’t,” Enjolras says gently. “Will you wait for me?” 

He hears Grantaire draw a sharp breath. “Of course I will,” he tells Enjolras, voice hushed. “Jesus, Enjolras, _of course_.” 

“I don’t want you to say yes to me because you don’t think you can say no,” Enjolras says. “I don’t want you to say yes because you feel you have an obligation to.”

“Fucking hell, you’re the most-” Grantaire takes a deep breath and then locks their gazes together. “I’m going to wait for you because I’m in love with you, I’ve been in love with you for ages.”

It’s impossible not to smile at that. 

“Oh,” Enjolras says. 

“Don’t act like you’re surprised,” Grantaire tells him, the corner of his lips twitching up to. “You already know.”

“You’ve never said it like this before,” Enjolras says.

“Yes, well, I’m saying it now,” Grantaire tells him, shrugging. “I love you.”

Enjolras’ smile widens. “Will you be at the hearing on Monday?” 

“Of course I will,” Grantaire tells him, and smiles, sweet. “Someone has to be there to kiss you when they let you go free.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [here on Tumblr](http://sarah-yyy.tumblr.com/), come say hi! :D


End file.
